Aurora Awards
Not to be confused with the film awards of the same name, the Auroras are set of Canadian SF achievement awards somewhat similar to the Hugos. Like the Hugos, they honor both professional and fannish categories, but are voted on Canada-wide by fans at the annual Canvention, essentially the closest thing to a Canadian national convention.
The Auroras are administered by the CSFFA (Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association) Committee. The first Aurora was a single award known as the Coeurl Award (named after the monster in one of A. E. van Vogt's early stories), while subsequent awards were called the Casper Award, but still later the name was changed to the more dignified and thoroughly Canadian 'Aurora Award'. CSFFA is the proper, technical term, albeit not particularly catchy-sounding.
See also Tinbit Award.
Prix Boréal[edit]
The Prix Boréal are the only French-speaking Canadian awards to be awarded directly by fans in the genres of science fiction and fantasy; they are given at the annual Boréal Conference.
The first Prix Boréal, created by Élisabeth Vonarburg, was presented at the Congrès Boréal held at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi in 1979, which was also the first conference of its kind. The first laureate was Norbert Spehner, for the foundation (in 1974) and the direction of the magazine Requiem (renamed Solaris in 1979) and for the management of the collection Chroniques du Futur, the editions of the Preamble, the first important collection devoted to French-Canadian science fiction.
The Prix Boréal took their current form at the initiative of René Beaulieu, writer, critic and translator of Québecois SF, during the second Congrès Boréal, held in Quebec City in 1980, in collaboration and as part of the Quebec International Book Fair. The structure of these awards has subsequently undergone some minor changes, still remaining today quite similar to what it was when they were founded. In 2011, some of the Prix Boréal categories were merged with the Aurora Award French-language categories for added convenience, including the "Best Novel", "Best Short Fiction" and "Best Related Book" categories.
The winners are chosen by a method very similar to that of the Hugo Awards: there is a nomination period, followed by a voting period according to an Australian ballot, where voters rank their preferences in descending order.
In their current form, the Aurora Awards comprise:
| Five merged categories of Prix Aurora-Boréals awarded to French-speaking professional creators: | |
| Best Novel | |
| Best Short Fiction | |
| Best Comic Strip (bande dessinée) | |
| Best Audiovisual Presentation (television, cinema, theater) | |
| Best Related Work | |
| Seven categories of Aurora Awards presented to English-speaking professional creators: | |
| Best Novel | |
| Best Young Adult Novel | |
| Best Short Fiction | |
| Best Poem or Song | |
| Best Graphic Novel | |
| Best Audiovisual Presentation (television, cinema, theater) | |
| Best Related Work | |
| The category of: | |
| Best Professional Artist | |
| The three categories of Aurora Awards given to fans: | |
| Best Fan Writing and Publications | |
| Best Fan Organizational | |
| Best Fan Related Work | |
| Award | 1979— |
| This is an award page. If you know something about it, such as who awarded it, who the winners were, what the criteria were, and when it was awarded, please add it! See Standards for Awards. |
